Curiously and seemingly illogically, since this current government assumed office, Yoruba and Igbo, who were united by their mutual pummeling by Buhari, have squared up to themselves in a needless ethnic animosity similar to the escalation of war between Israel and Palestine. The Leviathan has done little or nothing to quell the inflamed passion and escalation of distrust between them. The hatreds are bereft of logic, scarcely backed by history, and are mere whimsical carry-overs of political antagonisms.
“Opposition, which is meant to deepen democracy, has been castrated by the Leviathan in Nigeria.”
Why would a people who have similar histories, struggles, and challenges in the hands of their mutual oppressors, hate each other this much? It is so bad that, if one of the two ethnic stocks, as Maria Makgato and Lucia Ndlovu did, goes rummaging for edible food in the other’s compound, just as Olivier’s maniacal identity profiling of South African blacks, one will feed the other’s flesh to their pigs.
Sometimes when I read very acidic but senselessly divisive posts from both sides on social media, not only do I shudder, but I wonder whether the writers were the same offspring of leaders like Michael Okpara and Mama HID Awolowo/Alhaji Dauda Soroye Adegbenro? In 1964, both camps, leaders of two erstwhile politically irreconcilable parties – the National Council of Nigerian Citizens (NCNC) and Action Group (AG) – came together to form the United Progressive Grand Alliance (UPGA) and campaigned around Ibadan during Okpara’s visit. By then, Chief Obafemi Awolowo was locked up in the Calabar prisons by the Igbo/Yoruba common enemies.
In closing, the story of Hastings Kamuzu Banda’s government in Malawi will tell us not to take for granted the prospect of autocracy growing on Nigerian soil. Banda’s was an extensive cult of personality. He ordered all business buildings to hang his official picture on walls. Today, a particular cap of specific branding is worn by all top officers in Nigeria, including Villaswill Akpabio, a man who should ordinarily be at the head of checks on the excesses of the executive. Banda brooked no poster, clock or picture hung on the wall that was higher than his portrait. It was a criminal offense.
“Autocracy creeps in harmlessly, just the way music furtively slides into its listener’s consciousness.”
Whenever any film was aired in Malawi, a video of Banda waving to the people must be mandatorily shown. The same happened whenever the Malawian national anthem was played. If Banda paid a visit to any Malawi city, a group of women were mandatorily expected to salute him at the airport and wag their buttocks erotically to prep up the leader’s voyeur instinct. The performances were also accompanied by special clothes that had Banda’s picture on them. He banned faiths like Jehovah’s Witnesses permanently from Malawi while other houses of worship were mandated to get his government’s approval before preaching.
One major hallmark of Banda’s one-party state despotism happened in 1983. Three ministers in his government, Aaron Gadama, Dick Matenje, Twaibu Sangala, and a Member of Parliament, David Chiwanga were suddenly found dead. At a meeting with Banda, they voiced their support for a migration from Banda’s one-party state to multi-partyism. They told him to his face that he should perish the thought of a life presidency.
Not only did Banda dissolve the cabinet immediately, he stripped all members of their status and ordered the three men to be rounded up. They were also tortured and bundled into a Peugeot 604 belonging to Matenje. An accident was then staged for them with their car overturned. It was later discovered that they had been murdered with tent pins which were hammered into their heads. During their burial, Banda ordered that their caskets must not be opened for public viewing. They were subsequently buried at night.
If we think the above is impossible in Nigeria, we should just keep an eye on what is going on in Rivers State. Hours after the state council election, the situation escalated into an embarrassing exchange of allegations between Egbetokun and Governor Similayi Fubara. That is democracy under the Leviathan. We must know that autocracy creeps in harmlessly, just the way music furtively slides into its listener’s consciousness.
Of this, Bob Marley once sang, “One good thing about music – when it hits, you feel no pain.” There is a progressive shrinking of the civic space and its replacement with democratic stifling. Wike has suddenly become so powerful that every democratic institution – INEC, judiciary, or police – is hidden under his Ishiagu clothes. He arrogantly boasts, in inebriated gutturals, that he is the custodian of fire and he can set ablaze any state at his whim. The Leviathan is not bothered. Nigerians laughed at this grisly humor from a totalitarian.
Wike’s boast and the political calculation of the Leviathan who is playing games with the “head” of Nigerians, preparatory to a one-party state, remind me of the Chewa. A Bantu ethnic group of Malawi, the Chewa tribe can also be found in Zambia, Zimbabwe, and a sprinkle in Mozambique. They are a very metaphysical people, renowned for witchcraft and secret societies called Nyau. Research conducted by Reverend H. Debrunner, leading to the book Witchcraft in Ghana (1961) says witches play games, including football, at night like ordinary people.
To do this, they “cut off a person’s head and play ball with it.” He corroborated this with another research work by Marwick (1965) who said that similar practice was prevalent among the Akan witches of Ghana who “engage in… harmless pleasures such as dancing and playing football where they are said to use a human skull.” Incidentally, Hastings Kamuzu Banda, who personified witches’ cruelty in his presidency of Malawi, was Chewa. If, like the two black South African women, shot and fed to pigs by a white farmer, Nigerians are daily fed to the swine on social and political planes by the Leviathan and his appendages, we can only chorus, “Long live Hastings Kamuzu Banda.”
Things are tumbling down fast in Rivers, with morbid signals of owls – birds of bad luck omen – crowing in the air. In many cultures, owls are representative of bad luck or omens of death. They are feared and avoided. Wike and his Villa minders may be kneading together a script which will result in Dr. Moses Majekodunmi being a gubernatorial placeholder in Rivers.
When a State of Emergency was imposed on a chaotic Western Region in June 1962, leading to the Premier’s exit from power, that singular action spelled the death knell of the Republic. Rivers is the economic livewire of Nigeria and any tampering with the lucid-hour sanity of that Ijaw state could signal a rupture of Nigeria. It was easy for Olusegun Obasanjo to foist it on an agrarian Ekiti State. It could spell national disaster in Rivers. Hope the Leviathan and his cantankerous sidekick are listening.
The opinions expressed in this article are strictly those of the author and do not necessarily align with the views of JolibaLive News! or any of its staff members. The author is in no way associated with this online news blog.
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